INTRODUCTION 21 



who is less than an expert in securing the different species of 

 animals and assumes the responsibilities of surgery is seldom 

 successful. He should be perfectly familiar with the minutest 

 detail of the various methods by which animals are handled, 

 secured and attitudinized with the greatest safety to self and 

 patient and to the best advantage for the proposed interven- 

 tion. When the patient has been perfectly tied, the proper 

 anaesthetic administered and the field brought out into the 

 most accessible position, the operation is already more than 

 half done. On the contrary, when the patient is badly tied, 

 kicks with every stroke of the knife, and the field is not well 

 exposed by reason of an improper posture, the operator is 

 seriously handicapped and unable, except in the crudest way, 

 to carry the procedure to a satisfactory state of completeness. 

 In fact, young practitioners often become seriously embar- 

 rassed or even give up in despair in the midst of an operation 

 when the only hindrance to a successful end is inadequate re- 

 straint or disadvantageous posture. (For special instructions 

 in this connection the reader is referred to the chapter on 

 Restraint in Vol. II., and to the paragraph on restraint ac- 

 companying the description of each operation.) 



Next to restraint comes haemostasis as an important fea- 

 ture of operative technique. Blood must not be shed with 

 impunity; every possible drop should be conserved to the 

 patient. The loss of one to two quarts of blood to a vigorous 

 horse (and a relative quantity in the smaller animals) is not 

 a* serious matter, but when the loss exceeds this quantity the 

 operator must work with great caution. Blood loss plus the 

 exhausting effect of a major operation is serious enough to 

 the most vigorous subject, and it- is positively disastrous to 

 the debilitated! Sudden loss is much more dangerous than 

 the gradual loss of the same quantity during the progress of 

 a long operation, because in the case of sudden loss deprecia- 

 tion of the blood volume embarrasses the heart, favors syn- 

 cope from the anaesthetic and is prone to end in post-operative 

 shock. Bloodless surgery is the surgery of the day; san- 

 guineous procedures are discredited. But it is not only from 

 this standpoint that blood hampers the surgical operation. 

 Invasion of the body with a knife is always followed immedi- 

 ately by a more or less stubborn bleeding that impedes prog- 

 ress by keeping the wound constantly masked. In this con- 

 nection blood produces an annoying impediment that must 

 be met effectively from the beginning to. the end of the op- 

 eration. Otherwise the operator is only groping in the dark 

 throughout the entire procedure, and the quantity lost is u«- 



